Not ‘Normal’

The peonies don’t stay around long. Not those left to their own devices, out in the edge of the field. They are wondering about the abuse — the harsh wind, the lack of rain — and their massive, fragrant blooms tow the whole stem low.

We cut them by the bucketload, piling them like garments across our forearms. The fragrance defies words. You hope to fill your home with it. Like any flamboyance, the flower teeters on decadence.

There is no busier time than late spring. It is not just estate managers, hellbent on completion, driving the frenzy. It is scores of things, animals and insects, establishing a path to survival.

Last year’s cocoons are the first swallowtails to go, touching across the rows of fennel. She flutters and fights against the gusting wind. She must cling to her landing spots, her wings pressed like a weather vane as she progresses plant to plant, laying an egg, one at a time with each visit.

It is so dry that you don’t want to touch the dirt. Even though you can see the haze of tiny weeds, the thought of breaking the seal and stirring the field for weed suppression is weighed against a dilemma: No rain in the forecast. You want to hang on to every speck of moisture you have, but there are parameters and planting schedules to consider. The bigger the weeds, the harder it is to eradicate them. Also, it is time for another round of direct-seeded things, like beets and carrots.

“Just go slow,” I tell the tractor driver. “Try not to make a dust storm.”

Field conditions are fundamental to farming, and what is going on there, in and upon the fertile, permeable layer right beneath our feet, pretty much dictates everything. Current conditions permit that we need to irrigate to germinate, but by next week we’ll need to irrigate anywhere we want to work the dirt.

Those who grow food may be secure in their evolving knowledge of how to do so. And, yet, farmers in particular are unlikely to take any meal for granted.

I assert that this isn’t “normal.” I have old, handwritten records, those that chart the steady, warm moisture once found in the South Fork’s June potato fields. Those fields are gone, and so is the seemingly stable weather they enjoyed.

Farms, we like to say, adapt. Outsiders applaud the transition in techniques or the so-called farm-to-table movement as a means of “supporting their farmers.” Farmers are often perceived as an independent sort of people, even romanticized as “free” and lucky to work outside all day.

But farmers change what they grow based on market demands, and they must change how they grow it based on nature’s demands. So when precarious conditions prevail, it is not uncommon — late in the day, halfway down a long row, being careful not to bury the tiny seedlings or snatch the lines of drip tape with the tine weeder — for the farmer to construct one run-on sentence to capture the calm and still treacherous moment.